To drive rail vehicles which have been designed in low-floor construction, several concepts are known in the practice, whereby one distinguishes between designs where a drive engine is assigned to each wheel, and in designs where several wheels are driven by a drive engine. The latter designs include cross coupled as well as longitudinally coupled systems, whereby in cross coupled systems two wheels are each assigned to an axle, and in longitudinally coupled systems, two wheels are assigned to one side of the rail vehicle, and adjacent to each other in the longitudinal direction of the vehicle, are driven by a drive engine. The drive engines work hereby each through a transmission assembly with an output shaft. Such a design is shown for a single wheel drive in DE 47 49 73 A.
However, disadvantageously, drive engines of these designs can only be operated with a lower efficiency, since the drive engines are not operated in the main operating ranges of rail vehicles and in their efficiency optimum ranges.